


Further Down the Spiral

by Moosey



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Also maybe creepy, Amnesia, Dark, Derek Hale Angst, Established Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Established Relationship, Future Fic, Hale memories, M/M, Mentioned Kate Argent/Derek Hale, Mentions of Character Death, Sad with a Happy Ending, Snippet of violence, Temporary Character Death, The Hale Fire, This is a weird one to tag, but largely canonical levels of violence, slight horror themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-05
Updated: 2016-09-05
Packaged: 2018-08-13 06:24:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7965967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moosey/pseuds/Moosey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He didn’t understand it, wondered if maybe it had been a dream, or a delusion. It couldn’t be real, no matter how real it felt. Blood, and teeth, and claws… they had to be delusions. Had to be.</p><p>----</p><p>He doesn't know who he is, or where he is. But he can't get out of this house, and he can't stop the memories from coming back to him, even though they hurt. A trip inside of Derek Hale's head.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Further Down the Spiral

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know what it is with me and Angsty Sterek and NIN. But there's definitely something going on. 
> 
> This has descriptions of violence, a Kate interaction that might squick you out, and attempts at creating atmosphere. Written as a one-shot, and un-beta'd. Let me know of any glaring errors or missing tags? Thank you! 
> 
> Also, find me on [Tumblr!!](http://plebble-moosey.tumblr.com/)
> 
> -Ax

The ground felt solid and cool under his back. His eyes were closed, and he kept them shut, brushing his fingertips over the wooden planks that made up the flooring, dipping them into the rivulets where each slat fitted together. The varnish was slightly squeaky as he touched it, catching on his skin. He wondered if he should be afraid, to not know where he was, but he felt strangely devoid of any feelings, emotional or physical. Beyond the sensation of the floor beneath him and the warm air that barely stirred around him.

Wherever he was, it didn’t have much by way of discernible scent. Dimly, he was aware that this should be strange, should be ringing alarm bells, but he couldn’t quite pinpoint why it should matter, and didn’t care enough to try and dig through the layers of apathy to discover why the lack of smell was problematic. He felt like he’d be quite… contented, perhaps, to just lay there, existing, eyes closed and fingertips running through the seams of the floor, forever.

He drifted for a while, realising with gradual awareness that he had no sense of self. He had an abstract and instinctual awareness of his own maleness, but no real sense of feeling around that. He knew he was an adult, but that didn’t mean much to him. He didn’t know his own name. His exact age. His history, or his present. There really wasn’t much of anything.

Still he traced the seams of the wooden flooring, little back and forth motions by his hips.

He opened his eyes, a sluggish movement, squinting almost immediately at the gritty sensation. His lashes looked like blurring dark spiders legs in the small slits of sight before he squeezed his eyes tightly closed again, feeling moisture begin to well and lubricate. He waited a beat, tried opening them again, carefully, eyes almost rolling back before he blinked, once, twice, moistening his eyes and finally identifying the blur of white above him as a smooth-plastered ceiling. There were no marks or imperfections, just an expanse of smooth white. His chest ached for a moment, a burst of sensation beneath his breastbone that caught his breath in his throat and _hurt_. Something like longing, he thought, even as it faded away in a heartbeat, leaving him close to empty again. Though this time there was what he recognised as the potential for dread unfurling in his stomach. He didn’t want to hurt again. Didn’t like that sensation, that feeling, and now he’d felt it, he knew it could happen again. That possibility made his chest tighten, nearly imperceptibly, and that felt familiar.

The seed of apprehension.

It had been silent since he’d woken, no sound at all as he’d lain supine and largely still, even though a decent amount of time had passed. Perhaps it had been around twenty minutes, he surmised, though what he was basing that guess off of, he had no clue. A gut instinct, maybe. It could have been all night, or just a minute. How was he to know? Time had little meaning to him anyway, and he felt like perhaps he’d lost his grip on it a long time ago.

Now though, there was a sound coming from his left, just coming into his awareness. A tapping sound, following a steady rhythm and increasing in tempo even as the dulled volume held steady. Just a tap-tap-tap, muted and getting faster and faster before slowing, back down, one second between taps, then again increasing in tempo. A rolling pattern, like a cresting wave, calming and building.

 _Chopsticks on the dictionary_ , he thought, struck with the realisation that _that_ was the sound. He knew, with no shadow of doubt, that the dulled noise was the repetitive tapping of the tapered end of wooden chopsticks, striking the cloth bound cover of the dictionary that was kept in the lounge. If he followed the sound, the book would be perched on the edge of the dark wooden coffee table, shined to a high polish but littered with miscellany that showed a home not only beautiful and cared for, but loved and lived in.

He rolled to his side, planting one hand firmly on the floor to push himself upright, dragging his legs in until he was kneeling. The room was dark, too dark to see much, and he wondered how the ceiling had looked so bright just a moment ago, or what he thought was just a moment ago at least. He thought maybe he’d lost some time, listening to the beats.

Now the apprehension grew in his chest, and he fought the instinctual urge to curl up in a ball, protecting his vulnerable underside with his knees and arms.

The shadows skirting the room were inky black and looked almost solid, but they were steady and static. Just areas of darkness the meagre light couldn’t infiltrate, but it wasn’t the darkness that caused his breath to change. He rubbed his fingertips together, frowning at the gristly feeling, like dirt or dust coating his skin. The floor had been clean, so he didn’t know where it had come from, could barely see the outline of his own hands in the darkened room to see what was on his skin. He brought one hand to his face, giving a tentative sniff of his fingers, and immediately recoiled as the scent of fire flooded his nose. He threw his head back, scrabbling to his feet and roughly dragging his hands over the denim on his thighs, wanting to dislodge the scent, the dirt, from his skin. His throat and lungs felt lined with ash; he could taste it on the back of his tongue, and every inhale made it worse. He was panting, dry mouthed and frantic, that small seed now blossoming in his chest until the burgeoning dread and anxiety he’d felt, were wrapping around his insides like Kudzu, thick and unrelenting.

Without warning, his mouth flooded with saliva, loosening his too-thick tongue and he felt the unmistakable twist in his gut just seconds before he retched, hunching over and gagging fruitlessly, nothing but the spasming of his stomach and throat and the rasping sounds of his body trying to purge itself of poison.

He realised the poison might actually be a part of him.

He collapsed onto his knees, catching himself with one bracing arm, hanging his head as the panic subsided, leeching from him as fast as it had hit. Blinking his damp eyes, he stared down at the varnished floor, shades of light oak gleaming under the bright overhead lights that cast a subtle, warming yellow glow over the flooring.

Pushing upright again, the room was no longer dark and empty, no longer flooding his senses with fire and lined with lurking shadows. The walls were now a subtle and matte blue, something like Duck Egg, but tempered with a little more grey in the base. It was calming. The moulding was a clean glossy white. Almost velveteen drapes, a soft dove grey, hung along one wall, closed now, but he could picture them opened, revealing white windows that would flood the room with light, envisioned with the startling clarity of a well-worn, embedded memory, and he understood this room was not new to him. This room, he thought, might well be his home.

The sofas were arranged in an L-shape, a deeper grey and scattered with cushions of varying teals, deep and rich bursts of colour. There was a plush carpet also, and as he stared at it he could almost feel his bare feet sinking into the soft fibres. He wiggled his toes and felt the overlaid sensation of the boots he now wore and the carpet, like a double exposure.

The cloth bound blue dictionary was abandoned, slightly askew at the edge of the coffee table, a pair of chopsticks discarded beside it. He turned and walked to the light switch on the wall, moving without conscious thought, and flicked the lights off, bathing the room in blackness again. The scent of fire didn’t come back, but instead there was a scent of chemicals, ink perhaps, and the sound of clacking keys, fingers flying over a laptop keyboard maybe, a hundred words written without any thought, spilling from fingertips. He pictured a soft mouth, forming around the words as rapidly as they appeared on the screen. The soft glow of a computer monitor in the dark.

“That isn’t good for your eyes,” he said, hearing his own voice for what felt like the first time. The words felt familiar though, escaping from his mouth like they’d done so many times before.

He flicked the light on again, and for a moment the room was different, cluttered, with the walls a deep green, and beanbags shoved beside the brown leather sofas, shelves overflowing with books, video games, DVD’s, and odd little figures that looked like cartoon characters with their big heads and beady eyes. It was like a flickering echo, before the original room was back, now almost sterile in it’s stylish neutrality, compared with the bone deep warmth he’d felt as he’d seen a snatched glimpse of what this room could be. Perhaps had been.

He reached out and clasped his hand around the doorknob, expecting it to be cool to touch but finding it had no temperature at all, and opened the door to the darkened entryway. To his right, a solid front door flanked by glass panels that showed the night beyond it. The glass was wet, rivulets of rain streaming down, but he couldn’t hear the sound of rain at all, no matter how hard he tried. He stood by the door, touched the glass with his fingers - once again, devoid of temperature where he’d been expecting coolness - and couldn’t hear a sound other than his own quiet breath. It was a strangely lonely realisation.

He turned to face the staircase that was dominating the entryway, leading up to a foyer of sorts. More vanished oak flooring, with curlicued hand railings. He bypassed this though, and went through the archway opposite the lounge door he’d come through, and walked into what looked like a dining room. He tried the light switch, but it appeared to be broken. The drapes in here were open, so he could see the shapes in the room thanks to the weak moonlight filtering through the wet windows, once again blurring the outside with beads of rain, in spite of the quiet.

The table was central, and large. A big family had eaten here, he thought, but not formally. It looked well loved, and he could trace the dips and grooves of the wood with his fingers. This wasn’t a room for place settings and polished cutlery, but for rowdy breakfasts and kids wriggling in their chairs as they hunched over to do their homework, crayons and pencils scattered across the tabletops.

There was another archway, to the left, leading through to the kitchen. The wooden flooring continued on, linking the spaces together. There was a large oven hood, with a glowing light that haloed the empty gas top, and pooled on the granite work surfaces around the stove. A pattered oven mitt lay half in the light, a patchwork of little black cartoon wolves. It felt like it belonged to another time, incongruous in this kitchen, though he couldn’t say with any certainty why that was.

_Drip, drip, drip, drip…_

He paused, just beyond the light, and tilted his head. The iron-rich scent of blood reached his nostrils, and he spun on the spot, overwhelmed with an urgency he couldn’t explain. His vision clouded as fear exploded from his centre as the scent thickened, and finally the room coalesced into perfect clarity. His vision sharpened. The layout was different now, and there was a small breakfast bar, with a shadowed figure seated on one of the stools, back to him, hunched over and holding it’s hands close to it’s stomach. His palms stung as he tensed up.

“It’s fine, I promise you. I just slipped dude, and Mrs. McCall is on her way…” The voice was like a balm, closing his throat up with longing even as his muscles relaxed and he unclenched his fists. The shadowy figure flickered, blinking out of existence for a moment and then fading until he was staring at an empty stool, barely able to breathe with how lonely he felt. He bolted from this room, blindly making his way back to the entryway, needing air, feeling like he was suffocating in his own skin. He twisted the doorknob, and yanked, but it held fast. Even wrenching with all his strength, his weight pulling as he dug his feet in, did nothing to shift the door. He’d left blood smeared on the handle, but he didn’t know where it had come from. If it was even his own. His palms were unmarred, and yet he thought the blood was probably his.

It didn’t make his chest wrench at the sight of it.

He felt frantic now though, needing out, and curled his fingers into his palm, his fist solid and strong. He punched at the glass panels by the door, satisfied to feel the glass shattering around his hand and wrist, even as the pinpricks of stinging pain indicated he’d been sliced and cut by the shards.

He’d expected the coolness of the night air outside, the patter of rain on his skin, but it felt strangely viscous. Like the air was heavy, but no cooler or warmer than his own body. It felt like nothing, and it scared him.

Fear crawled up his spine and he yanked his hand back in, shredding his skin and muscle on broken glass, blood slicking his skin with heat, almost searing compared to the lack of temperature changes in this house. He yanked up the hem of his shirt and wrapped his arm, bracing it against his stomach and soaking his shirt with his own blood. Glancing up, he stilled. The glass panel was whole, no shards, no fragments, no gaping hole. No drips of his blood. He huffed a startled breath and backed up, half-afraid to look at his own arm. Slowly, so slowly, he peered down. His skin was unbroken and clean, his shirt still a crisp white.

“Fuck,” he gasped, flexing his hand and craning his neck to look around.

His boots scuffed the floor as he strode to the lounge, seeking refuge in the room he’d felt safest in, where he’d had that moment of warmth and safety, of feeling at home. He shoved the door open, barely registering that it slammed closed behind him, and moved to sit on one of the soft grey sofas, perching on the edge and clasping his hands between his knees. Weak daylight was filtering around the drapes, pale like early morning light. He closed his eyes, and counted to ten then back to zero, rocking backwards and forwards as he whispered, again and again.

When he opened his eyes, the room was dark once again, the only light left coming from the table lamp on the wooden end table beside him, shining down on a framed photo. His hand was shaking a little as he picked it up, staring at the smiling people hugging in the photograph. A tall girl with long dark hair and green eyes, smiling such a beautifully open smile, clad in a ceremonial gown that could only mean it was her graduation. There was no square cap to be seen though, and he knew she’d already thrown it in the air with her graduating class and never bothered to dig it out of the piles that littered the floor.

Her arms were looped around a teenage boy, slim, with dark hair that was spiked up with too-much gel. His eyes were a muddier green than hers, but his smile rivalled hers. He looked proud, puffed up like a peacock and beaming. He had a younger, smaller girl in a headlock, only the side of her face visible and twisted into a shout or protest, her hair just as dark, but pulled back in a ponytail that spilled down over the boy’s arm. The sky behind them was a perfect cloudless blue, and they looked so happy he could barely believe it was real.

It was with trembling hands and a sense of trepidation that he opened up the back of the frame, pulling out the photo. On the back, in looping black cursive were three names. _Laura, Derek, and Cora._ He traced the words lightly, and swallowed thickly. This was his mom’s handwriting.

“Laura. Cora. Derek,” he said softly, the names falling into the silence like stones. He was Derek. He stared at the photo, and could almost hear Laura, sitting exactly in this spot, drumming chopsticks against the dictionary in a pitter patter as she practised controlling the rhythm and speed of her drum rolls. She’d fallen in love with Blink-182, and was determined to be the female Travis Barker, though their mom had forbidden her from getting tattoos, and Laura had agreed on account of the pain not being worth the aesthetic. Particularly in her case, though he couldn’t recall why that was precisely. But the drumming? That bit she’d been determined to nail.

Derek stood abruptly, letting the frame fall from his lap and smash on the floor. He carefully slipped the picture into the back pocket of his jeans, and walked back to the door. He paused, as lightning flashed and a wave of thunder rumbled in, gathering volume before it crested above his head in a sound that nearly vibrated the pit of his stomach. Derek turned and found himself standing on the edge of a burned out shell of a room, the walls and floor blistered and blackened with char, beams from the ceiling haphazardly fallen. The furniture was gone, reduced to ash and dust and memory. This too had echoes of familiarity for Derek, the muscles in his shoulders and upper back gone taut with tension, like steel bands. He felt achingly bereft as he left the room, walking through to the empty shell of the dining room, coming to stop by the hole in the floorboards, leading down to a grave he’d dug himself. He could remember Peter dragging himself from it, dirt showering down as he stood, the damp scent of mildew and rot filling the room, overpowering even the ever-present odours of fire and age.

He didn’t understand it, wondered if maybe it had been a dream, or a delusion. It couldn’t be real, no matter how real it felt. Blood, and teeth, and claws… they had to be delusions. Had to be.

The floors were creaking now, as he walked to the main stairs. They looked precarious at best. He placed his foot on the lower step, carefully eased his weight forward and finally took the step when he was sure it would hold his weight. And so it went, the careful navigation of the staircase, pausing with his heart in his throat each time he heard the ominous sound of flaked of broken wood showering down to the floor under his feet and he was convinced each time that this was it. The stair would break and he would fall, visions of being impaled and bleeding out with wet gurgling breaths filling his mind. And once again bringing with it that feeling of familiarity, his hand absently rubbing circles low on his chest, as though assuring himself there was no wound there any longer, nothing piercing through him. He wasn’t drowning in his own blood anymore.

Cora was safe.

Derek stood at the top of the stairs, and looked both ways. The foyer had big windows, flashing bright with the lightening that intermittently illuminated the house now, but there were two hallways leading off, in an almost U shape. They were dark, but as he looked, the wall sconces flickered weakly, barely giving off more light than fireflies. He walked left, and the lights intensified, bathing sections of the hall in light, but creating pockets of intense darkness where the light didn’t touch. He didn’t want to walk through them, but had no choice.

He heard a thud behind one of the first doors, like a body knocking into something and then hitting the floor. A pitiful “owwwww,” filtered out through the wood, and Derek laid his palm against the door, breathing deep. He felt a smile tugging at his lips, and he whispered, so quietly it was almost just a breath: “Sour-wolf, I hurt. Make it better.”

Derek dropped his hand quickly, and carried on, choking back something that felt strange and alien in his throat. He felt like he needed to scream, yell, howl… just get the swelling ache in his chest out somehow. He opened the final door, leading into a bathroom. His feet took him towards the sink, and he braced himself there, steeling his nerves before he looked up in the mirror. A too-young face stared back at him, looking at him with his own adult eyes, worn down and weary in such a pretty boy teenage face. He tore his eyes away, looking down at the empty sink.

“Come on baby. Show me,” came a throaty female voice from behind him. Derek stood still, frozen, as nails trailed up his spine under his shirt, a confident touch that skated over his ribs and down his belly, dipping low enough to brush the top of his pubic hair, under the waist band of his jeans and boxers. It made his skin crawl and revulsion rise in his gut, even as his body shivered, and he felt the startings of an erection. “Baby, show me the real you,” the voice continued, smoky and syrupy, accompanied by a wash of hot breath against the back of his neck.

Derek looked up at the mirror, eyes locking on the woman who stood behind him, her body pressed against the line of his back. Her breasts were plump swells he could feel, and his body was caught between finding it exciting and disgusting. His breath began sawing in and out of his chest as his eyes met hers, a rich dark brown, somehow seductive and mocking all at once. The twist of her lips was cruel, even as she brushed them across the bare skin of his neck, grinning and opening her mouth against his skin, digging her teeth in with a little growl, but not biting down. It made Derek groan, and he took her hand in his and pushed it further beneath the waist band of his jeans, breath stuttering as her hands finally touched him. He felt like he was an onlooker, trapped inside a responsive body that was seeking pleasure in such ways that had Derek choking inside, sickness and anger swirling inside his gut, acid burning and cold like an ice burn in his gut. He _hated_ her, with every fibre of his being, and her touch was the worst kind of torture, and yet he watched himself push into it, hips moving of their own volition. His eyes changed then, a bright blue that almost seemed to glow, so cold like the icy hatred was burning it’s way out, and he could feel the porcelain of the sink grating along his clawed nails.

“There’s the animal,” she whispered, “my monster.”

Derek yelled out, the acrid scent of burning filling the air, and yanked back from the sink, falling back against the wall opposite. He let loose the howl that was trapped in his throat, an animal sound, low and mournful, one that shook and faded into nothing but his rasping pants as he shook apart into a million tiny pieces, so many parts of himself lost and floating away. He was thankful to see them go.

He surged forward and slammed his fist into the mirror, catching a glimpse of his adult face, blank like a mask underneath, with an overlay of something animalistic and snarling, fangs and blue eyes, before it shattered. Again and again, he decimated the mirror with his fist, until there was little more than glass ground like dust in the sink and blood smeared on the door of the cupboard it had once been on.

“Der?” came a male voice from the empty doorway. “What are you doing in here?”

“I don’t know,” he replied, forcing his voice through the sharp shards in his throat. It hurt to speak, hurt to breathe.

“Silly Sour-wolf. The charger is downstairs,” the voice said fondly replying to whatever memory this was, a smile so evident in the tone. He liked this voice, this man who was the very antithesis of her. _Kate_ , his memory supplied. He didn’t know what Kate had done, or who she was to him, but he knew his reaction to her was visceral and undeniable. It twisted around in his gut, like a worm, and he felt it tainting him from the inside out, like veins of smoky blackness treating through him.

Whoever this man was, Derek didn’t deserve him. He was sure of that. He was a monster.

Derek walked out of the room, and headed back to the foyer, peripherally aware of the lights burning out as he passed them, dousing him in a darkness as he walked. His hate was coiling within him now, and the shadows didn’t fill him with dread anymore, but with comfort and kinship. The walls looked like they were dripping ink black, and he skated a hand over the walls as he walked, drawing away with soot stained skin, the lines of his palm blackened where the ash had settled. It felt right.

He strode down the other hallway, walking through the dark without hesitation, barely even registering that he’d been walking for too long now, longer than he should have been. He could hear the sound of fire raging as he walked; he’d never realised before, just how loud fire could be, but it was familiar to him now. A sound he’d heard a thousand times.

When he’d thought about it before, it had been a source of light and heat, something they’d gathered around to make smores and tell stories. He’d liked the smell of bonfires once, when he was a boy.

Now he heard the roaring sound of destruction, the crackling sound of it eating through everything in it’s path, so impossibly loud he couldn’t hear anything else, like it was swallowing him whole. He leaned against the walls, trying to catch his breath through smoke he couldn’t see, and they burnt him, his flesh sticking to his shirt and the bubbling wallpaper, felt his skin melting and the heat searing his nerves. He stumbled forward, snarling out in pain, and was whole again. Unharmed.

There was weeping now, a woman crying, sobbing, great wrenching sounds ripped from her very soul. It was Laura, he knew, remember the sound, as they’d stood on the edge of the trees and watched the firemen fighting the flames. Laura sobbing, too far-gone to even scream, and the noise of the fire. He’d dreamt of those sounds for years afterwards; like the soundtrack to his nights, when his mind let it’s guard down, and he fell into the abyss. He knew it was Kate. That she had done this. She’d taken so much from him, and left him so broken. His innocence, his virginity, his family, his home. Gone and burned away, until only bitter ash remained.

He thought he could hear his mom and dad screaming, his cousins, so small and young, burning alive.

The sobbing was getting closer, like Laura was walking towards him, so he turned and headed in the other direction, gathering speed until he was running down an endless hallway as fast as he could, surrounded by shadow and the sound of his sister’s heart breaking apart, chasing him, flaying him piece by piece. He ran until he couldn’t anymore, body giving in and collapsing, slumped against the walls, waiting for them to burn him like he deserved.

Maybe it would be sated then.

Instead they pulsed against his skin in a steady pattern, and he heard the distant sound of a beep-beep-beep, like a heart monitor. It was strangely soothing, as he caught his breath, inhaling and exhaling to the rhythm of the beeps, to the feel of the walls moving against him. He sat for a while, knees tucked close and arms looped around them to keep himself protected. He thought maybe he could rest here, and he’d be safe, at least for a little while. He was so tired now, so tired and wrung out, hollow and there was nothing left to give, nowhere left to run.

He half hoped, as he closed his eyes, that he wouldn’t wake up.

 

*****

 

The ground felt solid and cool under his back. His eyes were closed, and he kept them shut, brushing his fingertips over the wooden planks that made up the flooring, dipping them into the rivulets where each slat fitted together. The varnish was slightly squeaky as he touched it, catching on his skin. He was afraid.

Wherever he was, it didn’t have much by way of discernible scent. This was strange, and was ringing alarm bells, loud and clear, sirens of warning shrieking through his skull. He had to move, had to get out.

Scarier still, he had no sense of self.He didn’t know his own name. His age. His history, or his present. There wasn’t much of anything, as he pushed himself to his feet, trying to get his bearings in a pitch black room that had no temperature or scent. He stepped carefully towards what he assumed was the edge of the room, hands outstretched until he touched the walls. He used that guiding touch to walk the perimeter of the room, until he found the light switch.

He wished he hadn’t.

In the centre of the room were the splintered shards of the crushed coffee table, and laying on those was a still form. A body, splayed out, limbs twisted like he’d tried to brace himself as he’d fallen, but had failed. One foot was tangled up in one of the beanbags. He had brown hair, mussed up, and his head was turned away from Derek where he stood, which he was grateful for. It didn’t hide from sight the blood pooling around the man, or how his shirt was so thoroughly soaked it almost looked black. But at least he didn’t have to see his face.

Derek’s heart felt like it had stopped, just given up. Like maybe there was nothing left inside of him but empty scooped out space.

He was crying. He could feel the tears tickling as they tracked down his cheeks. He still couldn’t smell anything, and he was thankful for that. Smelling the man’s blood, thick and cloying, might be the final straw.

Derek took a halting step forward, and flinched back almost immediately. Within the blink of an eye, the man’s head was now facing him, lax in death and smeared with a red that turned Derek’s stomach, so vivid was it against the man’s pale skin. Derek knew that beneath it, there would be moles scattered, moles he had kissed whilst the man had groused about them and how he was a ticking time-bomb in the Californian sun.

Derek had always taken care to remind him to slather on sun protection, even in winter. He’d called Derek a mother-hen, but smelled like happiness every single time.

The man’s throat had been savaged, and the gaping maw of a wound left behind was ragged and meaty. Whoever had done this, had sunk in sharp and deep, and torn through delicate flesh with a violence that called out to the shadowy parts of Derek. He wanted like for like, and eye for an eye. He was overcome with it, vengeance coursing through his veins, on par only with the guilt he felt, bone deep. Intrinsic to his very being.

He pulled out a phone from his pocket as it vibrated, and glanced at the screen. It was blurred and warping, so he couldn’t see who was calling, but he answered anyway, bringing the phone to his ear.

“Where’d you go Der?” the man asked, sounding concerned. “I’m sorry, I didn’t- I didn’t mean to upset you, okay, You know that. But Derek, something doesn’t feel right, and I’ve tried calling Scotty but he never picks up his stupid phone, and I’m kind of nervous? Can you come home Derek? Please?”

He stared at the body on the floor, and listened to his voice in his ear. “Can you come home Derek? Please?”

Derek closed his eyes, hung up the phone and put it back in his pocket. He kept his eyes shut when he felt the slightly wet touch against his cheek, and the soft breath against his lips. “Can you come home Derek? Please?” 

He jolted on the spot and opened his eyes, lifting his hand to his cheek. It came away red and bloodied, but the room was empty once more.

No body.

No blood.

The disorientation was overwhelming, and he sank down on the floor again. His phone rang, a buzz against his thigh, so he dug it out again. This time the screen was black, flickering, but black.

“Yes?” he said, tired to his own ears.

“I miss you,” the man’s voice said tremulously. “God Derek, I miss you so fucking much. I didn’t even know I could feel this way. I thought I’d hurt as much as I was gonna hurt, and then this… Please come back to me. Please come home. Derek please.”

“I am, I’m home.”

“I even miss your stupid overbearing growling whenever I hurt myself. When you think I’m being reckless. I’d do anything to hear you call me an idiot again you know?”

“I don’t understand. I’m home, I’m here. I’m home,” Derek replied, his voice starting to sound desperate. He needed this man to understand. To hear him. “I’m home, I’m home, I’m home,” Derek chanted, not even hearing the words the man was uttering anymore. He couldn’t stop the outpouring of words, the frantic way he was repeating himself. “St- Stiles,” he breathed, the memory of the man lancing through his awareness, too bright, too loud, and so _perfect_.

He saw Stiles as a gawky teenager, long limbed and loose-mouthed, dripping with sarcasm and insecurity, standing amongst the trees in a wash of sunlight. His eyes dappled in ambers and browns as the light shifted. He saw him older, still and pale, face blank and devoid of everything that made Stiles Stiles. A wide smile spreading across the mask, cold and humourless, tipped with cruelty. Older still, with fraying edges, the weight of the world on too-narrow shoulders, pushing through with sheer will alone. And again, soft and languid, laying back on a stripped bare mattress, fingers curling into Derek’s skin with a desperation that didn’t match the look in his eyes, calm and contented. He saw Stiles, in so many moments, things that defined him, and yet couldn’t even come close to showing who he was, because he was so much more than fleeting moments of beauty and cruelty. He was soft, and hard edged. Cruel, and kind. Loyal, and selfish. He was the sides of a coin. Janus. He was perfect, and he’d been Derek’s. Against all odds, they’d belonged to each other.

The poison in Derek recognised the poison in Stiles. But so did all other other parts of him too.

“Stiles, it’s me. I’m home. I’m home, Stiles,” he repeated, saying Stiles’ name like a chant.

“I don’t know how you got so lost Der. I don’t even know if you want to come back to me,” Stiles said brokenly, so vulnerable and bare that Derek could barely breathe.

“I let you die,” Derek exhaled, the words making him numb. “I let you die,” he repeated, voice cracking in the middle. He pictured Stiles laying in a pool of blood, and realised it was his fault. He hadn’t come home. He hadn’t come home, and Stiles was gone now.

Derek hung up the phone and dropped it on the floor, turning to flee the room. He walked the house again, no longer burnt, but a museum to his life with Stiles. Books and posters where their interests intersected and overlapped. A signed Mets baseball Derek had bought for Stiles one christmas. A collection of wolf-themed objects - felted toys, stuffed animals, porcelain or clay renderings, just anything Stiles could find that featured black wolves, presenting them to Derek with a pleased flourish and always a little happy, “look how much it looks like you Sour-wolf!”

Everywhere he looked, were memories and mementoes of something he’d never deserved, proven by the fact he hadn’t even been there to save Stiles. He’d been angry, walked out into the preserve, shed his clothes and his human form, and he’d run. It hadn’t been Stiles’ fault, at all, and they both knew enough of the other to understand sometimes Derek needed to run before he could talk, and sometimes Stiles would get snarky and defensive as a knee jerk reaction. They always got over it though. So Derek had run, the ground hard beneath his thudding paws, dry from a rainless summer, baked solid. Derek ran, until his lungs hurt and his mind blanked out, and he finally could stop. Could turn and walk home, no longer driven by the need to push himself beyond reason. He trotted, enjoying the breeze on his hot tongue, picked his way carefully through the bracken, seeking out home, and Stiles. He found his clothes his ringing phone, and answered even as he tugged on his jeans.

“Can you come home Derek? Please?”

After that it’s like a black hole. No thought, no memory. Nothing but a blank, vast space, and the not knowing what happened next is like an itch on his skin. He knows though, with absolute certainty, that it’s his fault. That he deserves to be here, trapped in this house, not knowing how it happened, but knowing he did it. The house where Kate had touched him and his family burned to death, where Laura was torn in two, where Peter’s throat was ripped out, and where Stiles had been mauled. This house, this place, was all he deserved, for too much death, too much blood that seeped into his pores and dirtied him deep down inside.

He walked into the room he’d shared with Stiles, after they’d rebuilt the house, remembered how they’d been unsure as to whether they’d live here or sell it on. It had felt almost bittersweet to Derek when they’d completed it, and he’d wanted to stay, at least a while, and soften the edges of the bad memories with Stiles, and maybe learn how to remember his family as he should. Not with the smell of smoke, but the cinnamon cookies they’d made at Christmas, or the Nag Champa incense his mom insisted on burning, even though it was so strong in their sensitive noses. It offered them a modicum of privacy, she’d insisted, to mask one scent with another.

Derek lay on the bed there, on the side by the windows as he always did. It still smelled like Stiles and him, their scent embedded deep. He lay, and counted his breaths.

One-

Two-

Three-

Four-

Trying to empty his mind. Maybe he’d remember then. He had to remember. He remembered Stiles now, didn’t see how he could of forgotten him. Maybe if he just tried hard enough…

 

…He remembered pain blossoming in his head, unlike anything he’d ever felt before. And then he’d woken up.

 

 

*****

 

The ground felt soft and pliant under his back. Not like ground at all. His eyes were closed, and he kept them shut, brushing his fingertips over the material he felt under him, the subtle sound of hands on fabric as he moved them, feeling the creases in the cotton.He wasn’t afraid anymore.

Wherever he was, it stunk. Disinfectant and people, sickness, blood, stale coffee, and even staler food. A miasma, too strong and thick. And somewhere amidst it all, there were familiar scents. Scott, the Sheriff, Malia, Lydia… and Stiles.

He knew who he was. He was Derek Hale. A werewolf, a beta. Living in Beacon Hills. He was in love with Stiles Stilinski, and Stiles Stilinski loved him back.

Against all odds.

He was part of a stable pack now, and he worked in a bookshop, even though he didn’t need the money, he just liked having something to do. People to talk to,with a set script of interaction. “Hi, can I help you find anything?” “Do you want me to bag that?” “Oh I enjoyed that book, it’s a good one.” No risk of mishaps or prying. He liked that kind of interaction. Stiles kept him on his toes enough as it was.

Derek Hale had been in a coma for almost a year. Not unheard of for a werewolf, but uncommon. After all, Peter had been in one for a long time too.

His doctor said he’d come in comatose, and they couldn’t pinpoint why. Of course they couldn’t, they thought he was human. His brain activity had been good, and he’d had no physical symptoms. He had grown weak, alive only thanks to tube feeding and IV’s, but that wasn’t a concern for him.

He couldn’t remember anything about his unconscious state, but he’d shown severe heart rate spikes that concerned the doctors. Derek knew they were anxiety or fear, could recall the lingering sensations, but he didn’t know why.

He was drinking a thin broth, something that tasted salty and slightly meaty, and that he found hard to swallow, when the door burst open. Stiles came hurtling through, just avoiding crashing into the bed by squeaking his shoes on the floor and turning to the side a little. He was like a tornado, all limbs and wide eyes, storming into the room.

“Oh my God,” he panted, his eyes dark and wet. “Oh my God,” he repeated, one hand tugging on the front of his hair. His face crumpled, then, and he tried to hide it, hide behind his hands. Derek set aside the broth and made a sound, tried to speak, but failed. Stiles reached out to him, his face blotchy and wet, leaning over and resting his head on Derek’s chest, fists balling in the gown Derek wore. His breath hitched in sobs and shudders, whilst Derek stroked his hand slowly through Stiles’ soft hair, pausing to check his hands for soot or ash or blood but not understanding why. It was a compulsion, and he couldn’t help it. He didn’t want to sully Stiles with it.

“Derek,” Stiles breathed wetly, voice thick. “I didn’t think you’d wake up.”

Derek made another small sound, another attempt at speaking, but he didn’t have it in him yet.

“You jackass,” Stiles declared, making a hideously snotty sound as he stood upright. He wiped his nose on the sleeve of his deputy shirt, and grimaced. “I missed you so fucking much, don’t ever do that to me again, Oh my God” he said finally, wrapping his hand around Derek’s wrist.

“W’happen’d?” Derek managed to grate out, a wave of dizziness roiling through him. He held Stiles’ hand in his own, trying to hold on tight but barely managing to curl his fingers around Stiles’.

“Another Darach,” Stiles answered, settling carefully beside Derek’s hip on the bed. “A dude this time. He hit you with one hell of a spell… It should have killed you. We don’t know why it didn’t, but God, I’ve never been so thankful for anything in my life. I shot him,” Stiles said, sounding proud. “I mean, I didn’t kill him or anything. I shot him in the leg when I saw you drop like a ton of bricks. Deaton thinks maybe it interrupted him from finishing whatever he was doing,” Stiles shrugged. “He’s gone now. Wherever Deaton took him, he said he’s not going to be a problem. Suitable mysterious and ominous from our good old local vet,” Stiles joked weakly. His voice was thready, and he looked like he might start crying again.

“You didn’t die,” Derek said quietly, voice coming a little more naturally now. Still slurred, but better.

“No Der, I didn’t die. I’m right here,” Stiles said soothingly, holding tight to Derek’s hand to punctuate his words. “Right here.”

“I thought you’d died,” Derek said haltingly, not sure why he’d believed that. He felt out of sorts, and so very confused.

“Well I didn’t. Not even close. We’re okay Sour-wolf. The doc will check on you soon, and I’m not leaving this room except maybe to use the bathroom because I do have some standards, and also boundaries, and Dad or Scott will deliver food, and we are gonna get you back on your feet. And get you back home. With me. I might not ever let you out of my sight again you know.”

Derek nodded, and gave Stiles’ hand a small squeeze, as his eyes slipped closed and he came perilously close to drifting back into sleep. He wished he had the energy left to tell Stiles how he felt, but that could come later. Tomorrow. Or the next day. They had a future; they had forever, as far as Derek was concerned.

“Stiles?” he asked, just before he went under. “My pocket.”

He felt the bed shift as Stiles moved, listened as he opened the small closet space and the rasping sound of denim. “Hey, there’s a picture in here Der,” Stiles said, rustling as he walked back over.

“What is it of?” Derek asked, holding on to wakefulness, just a little longer. It was important.

“Der, this is… This is you and Cora and. And Laura,” Stiles said, sounding confused.

Derek smiled a little, felt Stiles rest the picture on his chest, and place his open palm over it. “Where did you get this?”

He couldn’t remember…

He couldn’t remember…

But it didn’t matter. Because he was home.


End file.
